Week 8 Blog

Hey Everyone! It's been an interesting week in Education 250! We had our first virtual classroom meeting with the Zoom application and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. This week we learned a lot about data collection and the process of assessment. Data can be feedback, notes, qualitative data, or qualitative data.
Can be tickets out the door at the end of the day. We collect data so that we can teach and then figure out where we need to go next. Teachers can collect data through pre-assessments and post assessments. The purpose is to help EVERY student learn. As future teachers we can learn to collect data through numbers, written things, or verbally.
  
We will be working with assessments for the rest of our careers in education. Assessment is the act of gathering evidence to determine what the student really understands. Self assessment is a meaningful way for students to learn.

Pre assessment and post assessment test are great ways to show improvement.
Assessment and instruction go hand in hand. There is a specific cycle to the assessment to instruction cycle. First you plan, teach, gather evidence, give feedback to the kids. Students now know where they are with their grade or how they did on the topic. Apply feedback and reflect from children to next lesson plan. Example: " based on what students have said,what do I need to do differently the next time I teach this lesson?" This is standard 5 on the North Carolina Teacher candidate Standards. We need to know how these things go hand in hand in order to assess properly.
"When a teacher puts a grade on student work, the learning stops. Example: getting a bad grade back and still knowing nothing about what you learned.

Assessments:
Students should know where they are with learning.
Students should know what else they need to learn
Students should know how to reach their learning target

 For the state of North Carolina Standards, they use
"Smarter Balanced"is a state-led consortium developing assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards in English language arts/literacy and mathematics that are designed to help prepare all students to graduate high school college- and career-ready.
Standard 5 for the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards says that teachers must reflect on their practice. This helps create the most engaging and effective classroom possible for students. 

http://www.naesp.org/sites/default/files/Student%20Achievement_blue.pdf

This website is an education based and accredited source that helped me research this topic more in depth and learn about better data collecting techniques. 
"using student achievement data to support instructional decision making"